Next Monday, November 10th, is going to be held the I Seminar of Peers of Sustainability and Environment (RHA) sponsored by the Association of Universities Entrusted to the Society of Jesus in Latin America (AUSJAL) and supported by the Interdisciplinary Center of the Environment (NIMA) from PUC-Rio. The event will take place in RDC’s auditorium, on the university campus, from 9H to 17H30. Will attend faculty members from Jesuit universities throughout Latin America, which will feature regional and global sustainability projects, Amazon will be on the agenda of discussions also.

PIMAR is a pilot project of continuous monitoring through high resolution satellite images that pursues to identify the forest patches and urban expansion processes (both horizontal and vertical) upon the preservation areas of the State.

Environmental Education – Duque de Caxias MunicipalityThis project seeks as its first step to perform an environmental diagnosis of the Duque de Caxias municipality.

Environmental Education – Nova Iguaçu Municipality

Rio Vegetable Gardens Vegetable Gardens is a project of urban organic vegetable gardening that aims to create a network of continuous production vegetable gardens.

Environmental Education for Public School Children This project is a partnership between PUC-Rio and the public school network, and by means of the execution of Environmental Education activities in the campus of the University it looks forward to the awakening of ethical and environmental values.

The project, that always counts with the participation of each Municipality’s education and environment secretaries has already promoted the capacity building of more than two thousand professors and has also contemplated the schools with thematic videos and books that present a socio-environmental diagnosis of the area in order to complement environmental education actions produced by professors of many Departments of PUC-Rio. The production of these materials is important for the perpetuation of the project, both inside and outside schools.

The head of the Rainha River is located at Ponta das Andorinhas, one of the peaks of the Carioca Mountain Range in the Tijuca Massif, and it continues through the entire neighborhood of Gávea, bisecting PUC-Rio, and flowing through various schools, parks, and slums, before it finally empties into the beach of Leblon. Rainha is canalized into multiple underground pipes in which various communities have created illegal sewage connections. Water monitoring tests have shown that this has caused high levels of contamination in the river, which in turn causes health disparities in local flora and fauna . All of this sewage and other harmful contaminants polluting the river are flowing directly into the beautiful beach of Leblon, where hundreds of people choose to bathe each day, thus causing people suffer from these effects as well.